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[youngtimer]

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[youngtimer]

Thanks for the professional assessment.

[he chuckles a little, but ... doesn't quite let go of her yet. the hug is amazing: like the night they danced together, but better, infinitely better. he's been so starved for contact, and that night months ago had only made him more aware of the fact. he just rests his head and acts as though it's a frozen dance, like the two of them are perfectly normal like this. just ... let him have this moment, he thinks. please.]

Trade you my own pro tip: don't spend too long in the graveyard, apparently.

[gothicgambit]

[she expected him to let go. Well. being brutally honest she hadn't expected the hug in the first place. but now that they're both here and he just keeps holding on she almost feels a bit embarrassed. a flush is working its away up the back of her neck, but she forcefully grabs that bit of self-consciousness and shoves it far far away because what does she mind? there's absolutely nothing wrong with it and... and even if someone saw it's not like they would say anything to her or Five of all people.

so Celeste lets herself take it in, just enough that he feels her take a deep breath in, her whole body seeming to relax on the exhale. while he thinks about that night they danced, she's thinking of something totally different: when he pulled her from that nightmarish chamber in the mockery of his own childhood home. it had only been for a moment, but he'd held her while she regained her feet. he had her then, she's got him now.]

The graveyard...?
[it sits as a question, what had he been doing there, and what had it done to him? she'd thought he was dead. her tone is neutral, for now, but demonic form or not if she finds out something had harmed him-]

[youngtimer]

[he finally pulls back, because it doesn't feel right to explain it all pressed up against her like that. instantly, he's aware of her distance, of the slow creeping loss of her body heat, her support, her empathy. his antennae shiver, and he clears his throat softly.]

Yeah. ... Can I come in? I am fully aware that by crossing your threshold I run the risk of becoming a walking scratching post.

[gothicgambit]

[He moves away from her and it's like dimming the light inside a room. She hadn't realized quite how... lit up. she had felt when they were touching and now that they weren't-]

Ahem. [Ah, hm. must be dusty in here.] Yes- yes of course. Grand Bois has been behaving himself though, I've given him a stern talking-to after last time.

[The creature himself is doing his best imitation of a raggedy throw blanket on the couch, and has yet to open an eye. Celeste lets him in and shuts the door behind. And she remembers what he'd done when she was at a similar loss-]

Tea? Or coffee, since you're a heathen?

[youngtimer]

[the mirror image of the moment is not lost on him, and it's exactly the sort of thing that hits his sense of humor just right. he laughs, one sharp and bright 'ha!' with a flash of fangs that stays hanging in a grin]

I sure am. But you're my hostess, so I defer to you.

[he makes his way inside, preferring to follow her and look around rather than risk disturbing the living throw blanket with claws. it's been a while since he's been in their apartment, so he's keen to pick up anything that may have changed in the interim. in fact, he realizes, he's been in Atem and Ryou's apartment a bit more often. something about that seems wrong, somehow, even though he sees them all regularly at the casino. Horatio moves to inspect one of the decorations, idly, as he fills her in on his absence]

I don't remember if you ever met Bethan Costigan, but she was one of the first friends I made here. She was one of my sisters, like Abigail. And Gosalyn. And now Abigail's the only one still here. ... I went to the graveyard because I hadn't heard from Bethan in a while, and she was the one who told me that you could find out if someone was really gone by looking for their name there. ... I found her stone first. Then someone else I knew. And another. And the Handler's. Four people I knew, gone. I was standing there trying to figure out if I was enough of a glutton for punishment to look for anyone else, when ... I just ... collapsed on the ground.

[gothicgambit]

[He laughs! It's that quick barking kind of laugh that comes when she manages to surprise him. It doesn't happen often, and it makes a slight smile touch at the edges of her mouth that's almost covetous. Well, it took her a while to realize it, but apparently she wanted to keep him.

Still, this is a serious matter, so Celeste tucks that thought away for now. Their apartment is actually... way more normal than Atem and Ryou's. The strangest 'thing' would be the kotatsu Souda engineered in the middle of the living room, complete with a mahjong board neatly put away. There are lots of board games, card games, and books. But it's a very average apartment.

Celeste sets the kettle on the stove and starts digging for their most caffinated tea. They really should pick up coffee, if Five drinks it.

She remembered Bethan, and that little girl, Gosalyn. Bethan because she'd lived on the eighth floor once, and her similarities to Mukuro always made Celeste alert around her. Gosalyn for the opposite reason: she was one of the children in Ryslig, which meant Celeste had that uncrushable instinct to keep an eye on her.

When he mentions collapsing under the weight of his grief, Celeste's hands finally pause over where she'd been preparing mugs and sugar.]

Oh, Five.

[She almost never calls him that. She's trying to address the more serious part of him, that part that she can almost see standing over his shoulder, lashing his own back.

She puts her hand there instead.]

Come sit down.

[youngtimer]

[his reaction to hearing his old name is almost visceral: like a glass of cold water to the face. he would have bristled, but then her hand touched his back, and the knee-jerk reaction passed. instantly.]

... Um.

[he's suddenly not quite sure what to do. sit down, yes, that's painfully obvious. but a chair, or ... The Couch and all its implications of closer proximity? because after that hug, he's realized he wants more of that. especially from her. he's not sure why that's so abundantly clear to him all of a sudden.

only ... he is. he's absolutely sure. everyone else he cared about is gone. and she's still here. and he's realizing he cares more about her than any of them - no, fuck it, if Gabriel could see it the last time they spoke, he may as well be plain about it, even if it's just in his own head.

he loves her.

he loves her, and she's making him tea, and listening to him, and worried about him, and asking him to sit down.

this .... is not a situation he has ever been in. Mom didn't count. Mom had been programmed to do those things. Celeste is anything but programmed. Haltingly, he moves toward the couch and sits down]

'Kay. I didn't - um. I don't know what happened. I just ... collapsed. Next thing I knew, it had been a month. Noa said it had something to do with a Fog-created artifact that was destroyed on the ground the graveyard was built on...

[is he rambling because he doesn't know what to do? absolutely. he's even picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. fastidious, in-control, matter-of-fact Horatio is a few words away from falling apart, and from some corner of his mind he's watching himself and screaming 'stop that, just shut up, she's going to eat you alive if you keep this up'...]

Which, I mean, you wouldn't think that something magical could leave anything behind, but the more I think about it, the more it makes a sort of sense, because nuclear warheads do the same thing, right? It's just entropy ... only ... with magic ...

[gothicgambit]

[Ah, name had the opposite effect. She’ll keep that in mind for later, especially with how unnaturally it shaped on her tongue. She can’t say she liked using it either. Touch though - that helps. So she can do that, for him at least. So Celeste doesn’t take her hand away until he’s settled on the couch, doesn’t pay any mind to the cups or tea or any of it, she can boil more fucking water.

Instead she settles next to him and watches him fret with that particularly blank expression when she’s reading someone as intensely as she can. It’s probably very disconcerting, that amount of focus. Grand Bois notices it too. Giving them both a glance before settling back again into his normal demeanor

Words just flow out of him. In a rambling, wandering, I’m-freaking-out-please-don’t-mention-it kind of way that Celeste has very little experience with. So instead she takes stock. He’s trying to explain what happened instead of talking about how he’s feeling, as if ranting endlessly about the facts of the situation will make him feel less scared. He’s hiding behind theory the way she hides with lies.

So silently Celeste lets him talk himself in circles a little and when she sees his anxious hands pulling at the thread on his sleeve, she weaves her fingers between his instead. Not forcing him to be still, necessarily. Not if he doesn’t want to be.]

That makes sense. I’ll admit I don’t know much about either, I was not exactly given a normal education.

[But, because he wouldn’t let her wallow nor turn away from her feelings, she would pay him that courtesy. Even if she has to turn all of her focus to the carpet as she says it.]

You frightened me, disappearing like that… Komaeda is gone. I thought she’d taken you next.

[Her voice is not small when she says it, instead lacking in any emotion or vulnerability at all, the defensiveness of it immediately betrays her instead.]

[youngtimer]

[the anchor of her fingers threading with his both calms him and makes it worse. she's not calling him out, not picking apart every hole and crack in his defense the way she does with the gamblers who sit at her table, or the other fools she doesn't suffer.

no - she's not only respecting him, she's ... trying to comfort him, even now, in her own way, in whatever way two people who don't know how Real People work do.]

No - no, I'm -

[he turns a little on the couch, angling himself towards her, turning his heart toward her. somehow, he trusts she won't rip it out of his chest and eat it whole. he reaches for her other hand and takes that, too, squeezes them both. it seems they both need to be reassured]

I'm right here. With you.

[gothicgambit]

[God she'd missed him, and she feels like a fucking sap at how much holding his hand lights her up. But she pushes that thought aside for now. It's just the two of them, and they're past the point of really judging each other. Especially right now.]

You are.

[She squeezes back. There's an admission sitting just behind her teeth, and maybe it's the fairy form and maybe it's the way he's meeting her, level for level, that draws the words out. She has to tell him in some manner how she feels.
And because she's Celestia Ludenberg, and she cannot help it, she looks him in the eyes with a very familiar ferocity.]

Do not ever do that again, Horatio Hargreeves. Because I swear to any god that I will level this island to find you.

[Because she would. It had nearly driven her crazy to find him gone, and that itch beneath her skin still hasn't faded yet. Celeste has always been selfish, almost transactional with people's value, and he's worth more to her than most innocent lives.]

[youngtimer]

I can't promise you I won't, because of how things tend to go here. But I will promise that I'd do the same if you went missing. Especially since -

[he swallows. why is he afraid to say it? coward. he knows why. if he says it, he could LOSE everything. but is it even really his to lose, if he doesn't?]

- since none of it would be the same without you.

[gothicgambit]

[He's absolutely right, knew he wouldn't make such a promise when they both knew he would have to go back on it one day. Horatio has never, ever lied to her. Even if it would make her feel better-

it what?

And her brain halts fully when Five admits to any sort of feelings. Like what he's just said has completely caused a synapses to misfire. He's seen the expression on her face before, the momentary blink of unexpected recalculating when he does something that she has to step back to reassess.

It's just that she never did expect it. Ever. There's every reason in the book why he would not hold her so important. She is a traitor, a person who plucks at the weaknesses of others, someone who prides herself in the pain she can wreak. And he is absolutely none of those things, a martyr. More than that he's much more capable of a person, hell he was someone, he was born somebody when she just made herself so.

Silence. Is not the way to react to an admission like that. But sometimes for Celeste not speaking communicates far more than having an immediate rebuttal. She, to whom words are a weapon to be wielded, a master of every witty response, who cuts any and all fools to ribbons with her words, is struck silent. Even as her eyes hunt into his expression for any semblance of a lie, any dishonesty, and finds nothing but resignation laid truly bare.]

[youngtimer]

[he watches her carefully, with a quiet concern. he's waiting for her high, dismissive laughter, some remark about how pathetic it is that he let his guard down like this. about how she thought it was beyond him.

but nothing comes. instead, she seems to be watching him just as carefully. he stops searching, stops worrying, and simply looks at her, letting everything he hasn't said out through his eyes.

it's a long, strange silence, but it isn't an uncomfortable one, and that surprises him just as much as it may her. he squeezes her hands again gently, and just ... nods. yes, he means it. yes, it's true. yes, it's you. it might always be you, now. yes, yes, yes.]

[gothicgambit]

[She feels a bit of burn behind her eyes, but embarrassingly blinks it down. Crying right now would be idiotic. Even as her heart seems to squeeze behind her ribs and she finds herself untangling their hands. Maybe it was time to take a page out of Mukuro's book, to act on instinct instead of speaking.

Celeste fists her hands in the crease of Five's lapel, crushing the fabric as she drags him closer and kisses him instead.

It's clumsy, rushed, and the second time she's ever kissed anyone in her life. But she decides that it doesn't matter, because she can't quite say anything back to him. Can't find the words. But she can do this.]

[youngtimer]

[it's curious how being startled and relieved can fit so easily in the same space. he only has time to blink, but even in that tiny space of time, Horatio realizes what's coming, and meets her halfway. clumsy as the kiss is, he adjusts to it, finding her lips with his as he slides a hand around the back of her slender, soft neck. his fingertips hook in just the right place. somehow the pressure he puts into the kiss is gentle and starving at once.

has he done this before? yes, most definitely. but has he cared so much? just as definitely not. he wants her to know that this is safe to do. that he's not about to hurt her or betray her or - or anything anyone else in her awful past may have done.]